Writing for the “Black Dog” diary column in the paper, Mr. Owen takes umbrage with a joke made during this week’s ITV debate between EU referendum campaigners including Boris Johnson (Leave), Nicola Sturgeon (Remain) and others.

Mr. Owen writes: “Nicola Sturgeon, left, was the victim of an appalling Twitter insult by Nigel Farage’s former aide and flatmate Raheem Kassam after she clashed with Farage’s fellow anti-EU campaigner Boris Johnson in the TV debate. Kassam tweeted: ‘Can someone tape Nicola Sturgeon’s mouth shut? And her legs, so she can’t reproduce.’”

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/741004487146541056

Breitbart London’s Editor in Chief tweeted in jest during the show: “Can someone just like… tape Nicola Sturgeon’s mouth shut? And her legs, so she can’t reproduce. Thanks” which appears to have triggered Mr. Owen, who wrote to Kassam on Thursday explaining: “FYI – doing a diary item on this tweet”.

Responding over e-mail, Kassam said: “Excellent. You should also point out this one and this one, and you can have the following comment from me.. ‘Sovereignty isn’t all we’ve lost since becoming EU members. We appear to have lost our traditional British sense of punchy humour… unless some leftist comedian is calling for Farage to be attacked. Then it’s fine, right?'”

But Mr. Owen chose not to include Kassam’s response in his column, instead adding the comment: “[Nigel] Farage should remember Aesop’s Fables: ‘A man is known by the company…’”